Lottery Choice
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of lotteries throughout the world. Most American states have their own lottery games as well as access to multi-state lotteries such as Powerball and Mega Millions. Many European countries such as the UK have their own national lotteries like Lotto and access to pan-European game Euromillions. In addition to these main lotteries, most places have "secondary" lottery games such as Daily Play draws and scratchcards. As if all of those aren't enough, new lotteries are being planned all the time, with our very own Camelot looking to create a World Lottery Draw in the not-too-distant future.
Now, as far as variety is concerned it is undoubtedly a good thing that there are so many lotteries to choose from, and my aim here is not to say that multiple lotteries are a bad thing. What I do wonder is how, with an increasing number of lotteries being made available to us, we should best decide which ones to get involved with and which we should leave alone.
I, like many lottery players, have one particular line of numbers that I have played sinced the launch of the UK National Lottery in 1994. Now although I normally use those numbers when playing Lotto, I also use them from time to time when playing Euromillions or other games where I am required to make my own selections. When a new game is launched, I tend to try my hand at that too. It is almost as if I would hate for my particular line of numbers to come up in a lottery when I'm not involved.
But what if the number of lottery games increases even further? What if I end up having access to ten or fifteen weekly draws? Should I play my "special" line of numbers in all of them? Should I pick a handful of my favourite lottery games to focus on and silently hope that my numbers don't come up in the ones that I omit?
I don't believe that there is any right or wrong answer to these questions, but I do believe that we should all have a predetermined maximum amount of money that we allow ourselves to spend on lottery games. It is not enough to say that we will allow ourselves to spend "£3 per lottery game" because, as the number of games increases, so would our outlay. Instead, we need a fixed upper limit that will apply no matter how many lotteries we have to choose from. If we don't establish such a limit then we could well find ourselves in a position where our lottery outlay quickly becomes a burden, and that wouldn't help our enjoyment of any of the games.
Article Last Updated: 16/10/2007 15:40:33
